"Stuff is eaten by dogs, broken by family and friends, sanded down by the wind, frozen by the mountains, lost by the prairie, burnt off by the sun, washed away by the rain. So you are left with dogs, family, friends, sun, rain, wind, prairie and mountains. What more do you want?"
Federico Calboli

Monday, January 02, 2012

Some Replies--Eagles for Jim, "UFO Area" for Chas...

Below, Jim Cornelius wrote: "Caught an episode of Human Planet on Saturday, featuring a 16-year-old Kazakh making his first hunt with an eagle he had captured and trained. They had a camera mounted on the eagle. OH, MAN! I want to see an entire movie on this type of hunting in IMAX."

Actually, a wonderful movie about a young eagle hunter's journey from the smoky ger suburbs of Ulan Bataar to the wilds of Olgii already exists: Kiran Over Mongolia. Links will take you to where you can buy a copy; trailer here:

We know people on both ends of this production and can vouch for its integrity.

Chas was amused by our address post: ""UFO Area" is pretty special. I should ask our postmistress (it's a one-person p.o.) if she has seen anything that good."

Well, the Alamo UFO story involves gullible Anglos and a joke, but other gullible Anglos have come here from as far as Germany in search of flying saucers and cattle mutilations.

An old, very country cowboy named "Rink" used to work on a ranch near the Rez just north of here ("I been just three places; North Dakota, Viet Nam, and Socorro County.") We were sitting in the Spur one night listening to a woman from Germany, a UFO conspiracy theorist, drink brandy as she made an amazing speech. First she described an alien structure she had found on a bare hilltop, made of fiberglass; she would not allow me to persuade her that it was a Game and Fish quail waterer. Then, warming to her subject, she argued that powerful groups were attempting to shut her down: "...the CIA targeted my son. He didn't dare leave his bathroom for eight years. The final straw was when they killed my nine- year old Labrador-- the Vatican sent a hit team for him..."

Rink leaned over to me and spoke quietly: "Steve, that lady is counterfeit. I don't know what no Vatican is, but it didn't send no hit team to kill her dog!"

I think all you need is age, Jess- suspect I have already gotten there (;-)

On the other hand don't do what Wilma did: turn briefly vegetarian (she was of ranch background); try to turn your cowdogs into vegetarians as well, so they attempt to eat a porcupine; then take them to the Chinese- Venezuelan acupuncturist for ANESTHESIA (he sensibly refused, citing a lack of charts,so she had to go to the vet for "chemicals" instead). Betsy said the heelers must have thought themselves in hell when "that Chinaman" [she was Chinese- born, but a looong time before today's linguistic conventions] "... came at them with all those little needles."

Wilma re- converted to a cow diet but never lost the belief that reflexology would keep her lungs clear of her 2- pack a day Camel habit, right up until she died of lung cancer, albeit in her 80's I think.

Where to start? Perhaps with Wilma's certainty that the People's Liberation Army was taking over the US through chains of Szechuan restaurants, starting with her old family land in Scottsdale?

She cited this when, three days after I met her (in '79) she asked me to be a character witness on charges that she was trout poaching at the hatchery in Reserve (she was). When a ranger testified that he had seen her pull out a stringer she said (1) she was rescuing them (2) her friend the "famous Boston writer" would confirm this (it happened months before I lived here) and (3) the ranger was in the employ of "the Red Chinese". In Reserve ("Reverse") in Cartoon/ Catron county, in 1979.

Dang, this sounds frighteningly like a deranged acquaintance I once, and thankfully only briefy knew, back in the early 90's. She didn't flee to remote, backwoods Southern Appalachia to escape the Red Chinese persecution, did she? The one I knew kept sled dogs briefly(hence her attempts to associate with me) and let them run loose in an area full of livestock. The inevitable happened, and her huskies massacred a bunch of goats, which she refused to pay for when confronted by the irate owner(who, by some miracle of self-control, had not shot all the dogs outright!). The owner took her to court, and this woman's defense was that her neighbor DELIBERATELY staked those goats out in her yard to provoke her dogs! She lost, of course. And all her dogs did eventually get shot by other, less tolerant neighbors(sigh). She also made jewelry for a living, and got some of her gems and designs DIRECTLY from aliens, that visited and conversed with her regularly, as she seriously related to me. My opportunity to joke that I could NOT resist-- THAT'S where my precious gems had got too-those dang aliens had stolen them from ME! And so she should pay ME for them(she was trying to sell me some stuff!)--did NOT go over well with her!.....L.B.

But once more on Wilma. She was only selectively nuts, not like the totally certifiable German UFO cultist; in most things she was a tough old ranch gal and utterly competent to take care of herself. She just had... ideas.

She also ran, with her partner, a local small paper that in a different form still exists. If we hadn't liked her more than not she wouldn't have sat around our kitchen, smoking up a storm and explaining her theories, such as they were...